West Texas' three Congressional Republicans split their votes Thursday afternoon when the vote was taken on the Bipartisan Budget Act. The bill passed 332-94-7

Congressmen Mac Thornberry (R- Clarendon) and Mike Conaway (R- Midland) both sided with the Ryan-led Republicans and voted for the bill. Congressman Randy Neugebauer (R- Lubbock) voted against the bill.

In explaining why he voted against the budget bill, Neugebauer said, "I appreciate Chairman Ryan's work on this agreement and Republican leadership’s efforts to return to the regular appropriations process. But I can’t support an agreement that trades more spending today for cuts tomorrow.

“Washington needs to quit our habit of spending money now and promising to save later. That’s how we ended up $17 trillion in debt. It's time to make the difficult decisions necessary to get our country back on track.”

Congressman Thornberry said, "This budget agreement maintains the sequester savings and then saves even more. It also spares our country’s military from bearing the brunt of deeper cuts. In 2014, all of the additional spending cuts fall on the Department of Defense, and this bill replaces those cuts with modest changes in mandatory spending. It is not nearly enough, but it begins to reform that part of the budget where most of the spending is. It does all of this without raising taxes."

The Bipartisan Budget Act now moves on to the U.S. Senate for consideration.